


Reluctant

by Enclave



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon verse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Oneshot, Sickfic, Vomit, emetophobia warning seriously, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 00:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1531193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enclave/pseuds/Enclave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is out breaking a curse while Dean is laid up in a motel room with a stomach bug. Dean ends up dehydrated, panics, and calls down the only angel who can help him out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reluctant

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the first fic I'm posting on the Archive and the second fic I've posted anywhere, ever. Feedback would be very, very appreciated, as I'm not sure where my strengths/weaknesses are. I've written quite a bit of original fiction but I've found fanfic generally more difficult to write and I want to get better at it!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this even though it's rough!

Dean wouldn’t even be considering this drastic plan of action if he didn’t suspect he might literally die otherwise.

He was generally a proud man, and considered himself above calling Cas for anything less dire than, well, this. But faced with the prospect of passing out and expiring of dehydration on a grimy motel bathroom floor, Dean was willing to make an exception.

As soon as he caught his breath enough to say Cas’s name, that is.

Things hadn’t been this bad in the midafternoon, when Sam left. Dean had started feeling sick around midday, but he hadn’t said anything to Sam (who was, naturally, suspicious - “Are you sure you’re okay, Dean?”) until he had bolted to the bathroom around three in the afternoon to cough up everything he’d eaten in the past day. (“Damnit, Dean! You have to tell me these things!” Sam had bitched, standing behind Dean to brace him and rub his back as he vomited. “S’rry, Sammy,” Dean had choked out before the next wave hit. The transgression was quickly forgiven.)

Sam hadn’t liked leaving Dean alone in the motel room sick, and he’d been vocal about it, but Dean had insisted that it was just a stomach bug and that he’d be fine and Sam had better go out and save the innocent townspeople from the curse before anybody else died.

Dean had begun to regret this decision around six in the evening when he found himself retching up water and bile into the sink - he hadn’t quite made it to the actual toilet. He hadn’t kept anything down - even water - since he’d started puking. And while he still didn’t think it could be anything but a run-of-the-mill stomach bug, he didn’t have anything to take to settle his stomach, and at seven he had started to feel the effects of dehydration.

Now it was eight. Sam had been out for five hours, and on top of worrying that he would die in a dingy yellow-tiled motel bathroom, Dean was worried that Sam was in trouble and would die while Dean was unable to leave the bathroom for fear of throwing up on one of the beds (again), though he didn’t have much to vomit up anymore. And Dean was headachey as hell and lightheaded to boot; he could feel himself on the brink of passing out, but didn’t have the energy or the strength to get up, find a cup, and drink water, and even if he did he wouldn’t have been able to keep it down.  

In other words, the situation had officially reached Cas levels of importance.

Dean spat a rope of saliva into bowl and lifted his head pitifully, cursing his shitty luck all the while, and muttered, “Cas?”

There was a whooshing noise and then the answering, “Dean?” and then, as Castiel surveyed the situation, he added with escalating levels of anxiety, “What happened? Are you alright? ...Where’s Sam?”

“I’m fine,” Dean muttered, awash in shame suddenly. “Go ‘way.”

“Dean, you called me here.”

Dean tried to think of a rebuttal for this, but one didn’t immediately come to mind, and suddenly he was throwing up again, engrossed in his own misery. Somewhere outside of his attention, Cas, alarmed, was saying his name. “Dean?!”

One of Cas’s steady hands came hesitantly to rest on Dean’s sweaty shoulder. Dean made a halfhearted attempt to shake it off, but the hand only came down more firmly, bracing him. He finished up quickly, stars dancing in front of his eyes. “Dean, for how long has this been happening?”

“Only…” Dean started, mentally counting off the hours as he wavered backwards. “Only around five hours.” Cas sat down quickly and caught Dean as he fell limp away from the toilet; he maneuvered Dean’s shoulders until he was slumped in Cas’s lap.

“Dean, you’re severely dehydrated,” Cas said.

Dean weakly twisted away from Cas’s grip in a gesture that came across as more pathetic than rebellious. “I’m gonna fucking get puke on you,” Dean complained. “You’re gonna get sick and die with me.”

“I do not believe I am susceptible to human ailments,” Cas commented calmly.

“I’m disgusting,” Dean pointed out.

“I am also not susceptible to the human emotion of disgust,” Cas asserted. “Will you drink water if I get it for you?”

“No. No way.”

“Dean, you are closer to unconsciousness than you are willing to admit.”

Dean turned his face into Castiel’s shirt, breathing in the smell of him and closing his eyes, grabbing fistfuls of Cas’s trenchcoat with his fingers, thanking god that he was no longer alone and dying in a motel bathroom and ignoring Cas’s admonitions.

“Dean…” Cas warned.

“Fine,” Dean groaned. “But don’t blame me when I puke it back up onto your stupid trenchcoat.”

“Good,” Cas said, gently pushing Dean off his lap. Dean did not relinquish his grip on Cas’s trenchcoat until Cas untangled each of his fingers from it individually and stood up to find a cup.

He delivered the cup of cold water into Dean’s hands. Dean looked up at Cas, blinking slowly as though half-asleep, eyes filled with reverence. He lifted the cup to his mouth and took the tiniest of sips. Cas stood motionless, watching, as Dean hesitantly drank half the cup of water, giving Cas reproachful looks all the while.

“Do you still feel alright?” Cas asked.

“I don’t know,” Dean said, his voice coming out shaky. “Cas, I…”

“It’s okay, Dean,” Cas cut him off, sitting back down on the floor beside him. “Even if you don’t keep it down, you’ll absorb some of it. It’s a net gain.”

Dean didn’t respond, except to let out a tired groan and then a panicked sound before he lurched forward and threw up the water. It wasn’t actually so bad, now that he had something to bring up. Castiel rubbed his back, more confidently this time around as Dean retched a few times and moaned. “I haven’t ever watched the process of vomiting up close before,” he commented.

Dean gave him a strange look. “Are you finding it enjoyable?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Dean said, leaning back again.

“Where’s Sam?” Cas asked.

“He’s, um…” Dean could barely keep his thoughts straight for long enough to retrieve that piece of information. “Out. Doing… right. He’s breaking a curse,” he said finally.

“When will he be back?”

“Don’t leave me here,” Dean blurted out before he could think about it.

“I won’t, Dean. I want to ask him why he felt it fit to leave you in this state in the first place.”

Dean sighed. “People were gonna die.”

“You were going to die,” Cas pointed out. “Have more water.”

“I can’t.”

Castiel held the cup up to his mouth until he took a couple reluctant sips of it and then pushed it away. “Are you feeling any better?”

“A little,” Dean admitted.

“Did you know it was going to get this bad before Sam left?”

Dean didn’t respond to that, playing with the hem of his shirt.

“Dean. Why did you let him leave?”

“I’m just sick of being one more thing for everyone to worry about,” he burst out. “Those people were gonna be killed by the curse. Killed, Cas! As in dead. Between that and a fucking stomach bug, there’s no contest.”

“So you shut yourself in a motel room, a room away from your phone, with nobody to watch you and make sure you were okay. You could have called me earlier. I would have come.”

“Oh, shove it, Cas, everyone knows you’re busy with your angel war. I didn’t exactly expect to be on the brink of death. This is a freak happenstance,” Dean snapped.

“Dean, you don’t have to be on the brink of death to ask for help.”

Again, Dean didn’t respond.

“I would have been happy to come down and bring you water before it got to this point,” Cas added.

Dean held his tongue. Cas sighed, defeated. “You should… there is medicine for this, correct?”

“In the dresser in the other room,” Dean muttered. Cas stood to get it. “C-cas…” Dean said, suddenly nervous.

“I’m just getting it for you, so you don’t have to get up,” Cas promised. He brought back the bottle and measured out a dose of the chalky pink liquid into the tiny plastic shotglass that accompanied it. “Take this.”

“Do I have to?” Dean whined petulantly.

“Yes,” Cas said, completely unsympathetic.

Dean downed it, swallowed, and shuddered. He looked uncertain for a moment, but it seemed like it was going to stay down, despite the repulsive bubblegum flavour. He made a mental note to buy tablets next time instead of the liquid meds, even if they were more expensive.

Cas helped Dean up and the two staggered to the closer bed of the two in the room, where Cas un-shouldered Dean, who sank into the blankets gratefully. Cas grabbed the cup of water from the bathroom and carried it carefully to the bed, coercing Dean to take a few more sips before he slumped down on the pillows and pulled the blankets around his shoulders.

“I’ll wait here for Sam to get back,” Cas decided. “But Dean, promise me the next time something like this happens you won’t try to go it alone.”

“Yeah, whatever. I promise,” Dean slurred.

Even Cas wasn’t naive enough to think Dean was sincere, but that was okay. An insincere promise was a start. And Cas would do his part by trying to be there for Dean a little more often, and to set aside the angel wars once in a while to remind Dean he was needed.

Dean lifted his head from the pillow slightly and mumbled, “Cas… thanks.”

“It’s no problem, Dean.”

And it wasn’t.

 

 


End file.
